Needs Assessment Consultant

Terms of Reference for Needs assessment

Assessment technical focus Child Protection, Psychosocial and Education

Geographical coverage:  West Bank, North of the Jordan Valley: Kardala, Bardala, Ein el Beida, Ibzik and the 13 Bedouin communities in that area.

Duration  From March to April, 2019

• Background

War Child Holland (WCH) is an independent and impartial, international and non-governmental organization which has been working in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) since 2004.  WCH invests to secure a better future for children affected by armed conflict. The organization supports all children regardless of their religion, race, social status or gender. The basic premise of our work is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and our primary role is providing protection and psychosocial support for children and training youth leaders on the concepts of development and child protection.   

• Objective of the Community Needs Assessment

An assessment of child protection, psychosocial, and education needs in 17 communities in the northern part of the Jordan Valley, to be conducted by the consultant, will enable War Child and our partners to identify the needs and gaps in vulnerable communities specifically in regards to child protection, education, and psychosocial support. The findings and recommendations from the community assessments should lead directly to a practical plan for War Child and partners to commence program interventions in each community, including community child protection, psychosocial, and education support interventions, and capacity building of community and local structures.

The assessment will focus on the following objectives:

1. Identifying the key vulnerability factors having an impact on the protection and psychosocial wellbeing of children
2. Identifying the main psychosocial, child protection, and education needs of children and caregivers.
3. Identifying existing community services and gaps, and barriers to access to services

• Scope of the Needs Assessment

Programmatic scope: the assessment is intended to guide the implementation of any intended/planned activities, carried out by War Child or any of War Child partner organizations in 2019-2020.

The assessment will identify and analyze children’s and community needs, asking questions including:

• What are the main vulnerability factors having an impact on the protection and psychosocial wellbeing of children from the perspective of community members, caregivers, and children themselves?
• What are the most common PSS, CP, and education challenges and needs in the targeted communities? Who are in need for immediate PSS, CP, legal and education support services?
• How do children, caregivers, and the community cope or manage when faced with conflict-related violence and how effective do they find these mechanisms? To whom do they turn when a child protection risk is identified? And how efficient and effective do they find it?
• What are the available psychosocial, protection, and education services in those communities? Who are the existing service providers, including community-based organizations? To what extent are these services meeting the needs of children? Given the services available in this community, which children are least likely to access them? What gaps can be addressed by War Child and its partners?
• What are the current mechanisms (formal and informal) for protecting children in the community? What are the established connections with the national Child Protection Network under the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) in those communities? How effective are these child protection mechanisms?

4. Geographical Area and Population: the assessment will be carried out in the following communities of the northern part of the Jordan Valley (Tubas Governorate):

1. Kardala;
2. Bardala;
3. Ein el Beida;
4. Ibzik;
5. And the 13 Bedouin communities in the Northern Jordan Valley.

The assessment will focus on vulnerable communities at-risk of home and school demolitions, forced relocations, settler violence, and arrest and detention.

5.  Methodology

The consultant is invited to suggest an appropriate assessment methodology that is in line with the objective and scope of the assessment, taking into consideration any existing assessment or publication targeting those areas to ensure complementarity and avoid overlap. During the choice/design of the assessment methodology, the consultant will make sure that:

• Existing resources are used, such as existing assessments, monitoring data, reports, community action plans, and other secondary materials like evaluations of similar approaches of other NGOs. In particular, the assessments should align with and take into account the vulnerability assessments and community profiles undertaken by the Protection Consortium.
• The views and opinions of various community members of various age groups are taken into account (e.g. children, youth, adults and elderly).
• A combination of assessment methods are used, and participatory techniques, such as mapping, diagramming or self-assessments must be incorporated, and assessment findings are triangulated and validated as much as possible.

6. Timeframe: the assessments will take place during the March and April 2019.
7. Coordination: The assessments must be designed taking into consideration the data already available from the Protection consortium, Child Protection Working Group and the Protection Cluster if available. Coordination with War Child partner (DCIP) and any other relevant partners in designing and conducting the assessment and field visits as part of the assessment process is highly encouraged.

• Deliverables and reporting:

Deliverables:

• A detailed plan for the assessment process, including provisions to ensure child safety and how issues of confidentiality and duty of care will be managed, to be presented to War Child before assessments begin.
• An agreed methodology and assessment tool, taking into consideration feedback from War Child and other partners.
• All data collected through quantitative and qualitative assessment methods, to be kept by the consultant under confidential conditions and available for review by War Child.
• Regular coordination meetings are held to enable participation in assessment process by other partner organizations.

• Assessment reports:

• A draft  report which includes an assessment of each community is submitted to War Child in English for input within 2 weeks of completing the fieldwork.
• Final assessment report submitted to War Child April 30th , 2019
• Regular update meetings are held between partners and War Child to discuss preliminary findings during the assessment process.
• Upon completion of the assessment, a planning meeting is held during which all project partners meet to discuss the outcomes of the community assessments and next steps for project implementation.

Time Frame:

The consultant is expected to start on March 1st 2019, and all assessments are expected to be completed by April 30th 2019.

جميع الحقوق محفوظة لموقع جوبس.

Profile

Knowledge and experience:

• Demonstrated experience in psychosocial support and child protection;
• An advanced university degree in social sciences, with specialized training in conducting needs assessments;
• Demonstrated experience in managing quantitative data sets in SPSS or similar, and conducting repeated measures statistical analysis of standardized, validated child protection and psychological questionnaires
• Demonstrated experience collecting qualitative data on sensitive topics using participatory and child-friendly methods;
• At least 3 years of experience in conducting needs assessments;
• Thorough knowledge of the oPt context
• Full working knowledge of Arabic, and of English languages, and excellent analytical and report writing;
• Personal skills: good communication, analytical and drafting skills;

Please send your English CV and cover letter, together with a document including;

Please send the documents to [email protected]  by February 15th 2019, with title “Community Child Protection, Psychosocial, and Education Needs assessment” Due to large volume of the application we receive; only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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The safety of children is essential to War Child. War Child does not tolerate or accept any form of abuse. This subject is addressed in our recruitment and selection procedures.